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sadness

In my hood #abnormal #legoPoetry

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I ask myself  If the world turns different, and
if the paintings  From the depth of my hood or
Around the world  the scribbles on my wall,
Feel sames as  if peeled-away hope, is all  
That on my wall.  lives and hope ask
Am I just crazy?  For: wanting to be!

(c) nyonglema

I’m going to one day make a #LEGOpoem that really works. I’ll keep working at it and sharing what I get with you, no matter how imperfect. Maybe it will inspire somebody to combine 3 poems in 1 in this way.

This is a reflection on the paradoxes of my home, where the laws are strong, but the law is weak, leading to a bleak picture where hope fades into the horizon…the norm is what is abnormal!

joy

Home #nature

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There’s an orchestra in the trees
A funny band they are, uniform with instruments.
The same notes rustle enchanted leaves,
Putting on a show for the feathery clouds pasted
Across the tapestry of God’s palace,
(For a carpenter, it’s strange He fancies blue)
Spreading before my eyes covered in awe
Taking it all in: the air pressure mounting Bucephalus to move
Feathers on the band, the sunlight stealing trinkets of colour for
My hungry eyes, the Earth of golden brown,
Holding years of history in stories it whispers to my consciousness
As I grab a fistful of my raw material.
Maybe I should seek a seat by those rowdy fellows
And watch their breasts vibe at the resonance
Of nature’s beauty.
Oh that band of one instrument.
One as an instrument taking me home.

(c) Nyonglema

joy

School #writing201 #school #auldlangsyne

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The sun pours shine in gusts of gelb
And rise my sons from home
To bathe in glow and with some help
Get dressed to get to school

The steps do let them down to stones
Of colours myriad fair,
The breeze brings blowing myriad tones
From flowers here and there.

The chirping birds on that tall tree
Are music to their minds
To cheer with song these grumpy three
With packs upon their backs.

The metal beast receives them all
As scream and shout they go
To fight for toys or random ball
And scream some more I do

And start the rev and off we go
Through green and brown to school
To learn of things of long ago
And things so Google new

Oh how I wish my days were back
And I could go to school
Not type away on platic tacks
But smell the nests on trees.

(c) Nyonglema

sadness

Rush #late #hurry #homeSick

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I’m dreaming of a melody
Pulling me from sleep’s safe haven.
“Ding ding la-la ding” it sings
And my eyes seek the screen to swipe-to-snooze
But then the phone rings:
“Your lift is here sir”

What??4am already????
Quick, throw my underwear off,
Rush, pee, Brush
Turn the shower knob to wash
It’s cold! It’s hot! Too cold, not quite hot. Ok
Gel on the face cloth
Scrub, scrub, counting seconds in my head.
Rush, rush. Lotion. Deodorant.
Throw on my gear in haphazard layers.
No belt, won’t do my laces.
Rush, rush: I just can’t miss this flight home!

(c) Nyonglema

surprise

The Grass is Greener #hereHome #home

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We’re not called upon to choose anything we live through;
Neither parent nor sibling nor school nor form of sinew;
Neither colour of hair or eye or skin,
Nor love or hate, nor loss or gain
Nor opportunities nor whence we come. So much is true.

But as much as this truth I hold as true as sunlight,
I know that painful times will time to time alight
When with bitter phlegm you curse
The earth where you breathed first
And wish your day of birth were scratched by He with might.

I know. Same feelings have plagued my adult soul
And the wish for better home to make each day whole
Has been dashed by shameful news,
Where Hope, seeing Hitler, and 94’s Hutus,
Needs to hide its youth to stall the death toll.

But amidst pain, hate and bottled despair rife
There’s the rare love, innocent and hardly grasping to life.
For here, we can give our all
When we choose to keep you from a fall.
We really do it: humble, loving…just like the Lord’s life.

Yes, it’s easier to perceive the weeds in one’s garden
For the pastures beyond gleam in our myopia, hiding their burden.
And seeing that weed can cast a shadow
On all that’s sweet, but cause much ado
About the bitter parts, and it day by day your heart will harden.

Think of the evening breeze on the night grill,
Feeding the flames of a delicious family fish meal.
Think of hitting the unadulterated
Lands of hills where ancient rivers percolated
And happy goats skip, and cattle graze and one can feel

Life whizzing through rustling leaves of dancing old tree or reed,
Playing the music our ancestors learned to read,
Making your lungs touch their purpose,
Dazzling your eyes like a Jabbawockeez pose,
The music we’ve forgotten as we focus on some RSS feed.

Think of the youths wise with tradition re-enacting solemnly
The dances and music handed down from before when Ptolemy
Phrased ancient philosophical data,
To the time of the expansive empire of Sundiatta
Beads stomping the dust frantically in musical poetry.

Picture the pure darkness which crowds the silent night air,
Unveiling the marvellous dotted and scattered there
In the moonlit heavenly canvas,
Watching us from light years past,
And we fascinated by the sparkling magic they share.

So to sum it all up, I know it cannot be perfect,
And sometimes I rant and make massive graffiti of its defects,
But this home my parents chose
Still draws my spirit close,
For the bond is deeper, far deeper than human senses can detect.

(c) Nyonglema

sadness

The Return #soldiers #war #stopWar

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Pam-de poodle-pam
His eager war-worn fingers tapped away;
Home sweet home! How glad!
No more late night crawls,
Stealthy whispers; all will be better.
He stares at the dying sun, how glad!
Straight home, to the arms of his weary-with-waiting family.
All the dreary things he had seen, done;
The foetid smell of vicious powder at every shot,
His fallen friends, the disturbed erupting rubble
At each bomb blast!
Only homewards!
The truck pulled lazily away,
Grumbling at the load: a hoarde of weary fighters
Hope and ammunition spent, with hunger double bent;
Pulling sorry faces, Shakespeare could not have imagined better!
But under those scarred wrinkled overgrown brows
Flickered in their searching eyes
Some hope, hope of home comfort.
The truck plodded lazily on;
They chanted: one dead song it was;
Like ten drunkards at an opera.
Oh, but for the fallen, how much better it would have been!
Those memories plunged into his dud brain,
Digging tears from his stone-chiselled heart,
But he fought back; a soldier does not cry.

(c) Nyonglema

love

I Am #divorce #brokenHome #cheat #alimony #home

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I’m the anchor chain plunging into the deep,
Summoned by the sombre sea bed, taut and steep.
I’m the anchor chain torn between the deep and the ship,
Serving both the anchor digging the sea weeds,
And the ship ripping me off the anchor’s hold in its speed glee.

I’m problem land, trapped between two owners;
One person’s shouting curses, the other would feed the coroner.
I’m problem land. Remember the glorious days past
With daisies and morning glories? It’s over! Gun blasts
Have let loose blood baths to mar that beauty too fast!

I’m a mule, would you bet millions I’m horse or donkey?
Am I part of The Plan or mistaken fall out of a monkey?
I’m both! Let no war marr my existence.
Let horse hate donkey, but here must both parents’ love have residence,
In this heart two hearts made.

( c) Nyonglema

fear

The Irony of the Red Smiling Cyclops #nuun #nassara #genocide #isis

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It appeared on the doorpost as a Cyclop’s smiley face
For some Cyclops WhatsApp icon, but red-themed application
Yes gruesome red, in contrast to the expectation
You would get from a smiley face, even for a Cyclops.
It quizzed my curiosity and I dug further on Google’s interface.

It appeared on the search page as the queen Isis,
Long told in Hieroglyphics, Cyrillic and Roman alphabet,
Patroness, mother, queen, blessings with love met,
But unlike these grim Arabic script in an ominous logo,
And tales of death, pain littered with deeper crises

It told of “nuun”, 14th letter of a blessed script
In which many beautiful and wise thoughts found life,
A letter which told of blessing and not of strife
Being in a position multiple of seven, a number blessed
By God Himself when he Earth and Heaven in 7 breaths whipped

It told of the Magen David, a shining star, which should be a good thing
Only that it brings memories of gaunt bodies piled in trucks
And human experimentation, and as history at our door knocks
And Isis or Isil opens to let in what we dread most
“Nuun” is stuck in my iris with pain and scary sting.

For I have seen the blank stare of heads painting in red drips the pickets
And Leonidas’ 300-style gore re-enacted in modern city streets
As heads are divorced from bodies and all around are scared heartbeats
For even bloodied child clothes cover head-less bodies,
As Christians are beheaded like one would roast crickets.

It brings back memories of my ancestors up in the Samba regions,
Fleeing the harsh choice given to them by the jihadists:
To adorn the village picket or join the cause of the Islamist,
Forced to create a third choice, which was to leave their homes,
Friends and family to pseudo-Islam or lurid lethal lesions.

Is it that time again for Iraqi Christians?
Shall the world once again watch the Red Indians’,Tutsis’, and Jews’
Story take gruesome form and hack through human sinews?
How many litres of innocent blood, and kilogrammes of hacked human flesh
Are needed to realise the vanity in the life of Homo sapiens?

(c) Nyonglema

joy

The Desert I Sought

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One step on the white blistering sand,
Sandals in hand, turban shrouding my beard
From the gusts of arid wind sucking my sweat
And burning my skin and mucosa.

I looked ahead, raising my hand
To block the sun and see the herd
Of camels ahead, and beyond the dunes,
The promise of death from thirst and hunger.

I saw the cactus hold firm to the sand,
And scavengers in the form of an innocent bird
Swimming overhead as if to admire their work:
Meatless bones basking lifeless in the sun.

Was that my fate? Lifeless in the sand
Going through the process to be bird turd
As they pecked and relished? So it seemed.
I pulled myself on, and my body protested.

Is this why this route was so bland?
That civilisation despite its million nerds
Had not found a way to profane the dunes
And  enforce its will on Nature’s plans?

But I keep on with the target at hand.
Oh…I forgot to give you the Word!
Great promise lies ahead, beyond the pain,
Beyond the thirst, beyond lurking death.

Behind me lies a devastated land,
The old me: wicked an absurd.
Beyond the pain lies Life, and just like a newborn,
I shall bear the suffering that takes me Home.

(c) Nyonglema

fear

HOME (2007)

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Home’s laughter and joy, where good thoughts mature;
Home’s water for life, and without colour or odour;
Home makes eyes water, but beneath blesses each smile.
Not home the seat of vile yoke-wielders Satan couldn’t beguile.
Not home despair growing from the tree you didn’t help spawn.
What’s home when your peers relish as sadness does you a turn?
No! Not home if I can’t rest at night and wish the morrow.

Home’s children in the present hopeful and eyes turned to the future;
Home’s elders drawing the past to give the present’s pleasant contour;
Home’s youths building the future with the puerile and senile,
All hand in hand lifting Home higher in each while.
Not home hearts buckling under unfulfilled dreams, hearts that yearn!
What’s home if children’s present shames elders’ past, and in turn
Home’s youths’ future condemns their very life so hollow?

Home’s working for your bread and to your produce more manure;
Home’s doing what you crave and in your grave be happy manure.
Home’s scorn for the hedonists, respect for the agile.
Not home the heart-tearing feeling of drying the Nile!
Not home where your greatest achievements meet the urn!
What’s home when greater achievements are mere kindergarten turns?
No! Not home my teary eye sharing in my fellowmen’s sorrow!

Home’s being satisfied that all one needs is secure;
Home’s not wants achieved, but necessities from the store;
Home’s absence of frustration at getting blamed your job’s an empty vial
Because home didn’t offer the tools you needed, though they’re there all the while!
Not home when the doctor gets blamed that the propellers don’t turn;
What’s home when the shoe mender mends body burns?
No! Not home a place where squares fit circles in a mentality so shallow.

There was home in my heart as TV waves my growing heart would lure.
Homewards, I’d think, into prospects of rejoicing in a reality so pure;
Reality, home to opportunities, possibilities: me and my dreams down the aisle,
With home’s resources building a mighty Rome in the eyes of a little child.
That was home as my blood pumped and I awaited my turn
To give home all my feeble self could afford. All I could learn
As age called was broken dreams, and the pain of a morose morrow.

(c) Nyonglema Pisoh